Bleeding Knuckles and Broken Hearts
by The Bickering Kingdom
Summary: A Drabble/One shot collection about the things that made the Shelby family who they are. Currently Accepting Prompts.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

His nose was bleeding and he couldn't open his left eye, but he doesn't care because for once his dad is proud of him. For the first time in his life Arthur Shelby Jr has the approval that he has always sought from his dad.

It doesn't matter the small boy is in pain or that his mum isn't happy that he's been fighting. For once his Aunt Polly's glare doesn't bother him because finally his dad is proud and all took was winning a fight.

The first time in his young life he feels at peace 


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing

He wants to scream and shout, wreck everything in his path, but instead he's rooted to the spot with a look of disbelief on his face.

His mum is dead and he doesn't know how it's possible because she was fine the day before.

How can someone be okay one day and dead the next?

And if Ada wasn't sobbing, Arthur wasn't punching the wall and if Tommy didn't have tears streaming down his face while Aunt Polly tells him everything will all be okay, he would think that it was all a sick joke.

People were always playing jokes on him, but not this time, not now when he really wants all of it to be a joke it isn't. He wants his mum, he wants a hug from her and he wants her to be alive.

John wants to stamp his feet like a small child, he still is a child just not young enough to get away with stamping his feet in a tantrum but he can't do anything.

He just stands there like a statue, unable to voice how he's feeling with words, unable to show how he's feeling by crying or breaking things.  
John just stands there with a storm raging inside his heart and invisible to his family. 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

They expected her to cry when they pushed her in the mud the other girls always cried, but she wasn't like other girls she was Ada Shelby.

Ada Shelby didn't cry over something as trivial as a bit of mud on her new dress and a cut knee no she gets up and smirks before punching the ring leader in the face.

She knees the boy who called her family scum in the balls, then whispers "When I tell my brothers what you called our family you are all fucking dead,". When they run away, she smiles sweetly and picks up her doll that's covered in mud an walks home.

When she gets home Aunt Polly isn't happy about the state of her dress and even less happy about the fact that anyone would dare lay a hand on her.

Aunt Polly smiles at her when she tells her how she punched one in the face and kneed one in the balls.  
Aunt Polly had taught never let anyone push you around because once they started they would never stop.

Ada may have only been a seven year old girl, but she could fight just well as any boy and she didn't cry easily, she was a Shelby and no one pushed her around. 


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

It's the middle of the night when his dad rolls up after nearly a year of disappearing with a heavily pregnant blonde.

If he had his way he wouldn't have let them in the house but he was outvoted. Aunt Polly tells him they are only staying until that baby is born.

Tommy almost finds it amusing that his dad has another child on the way when he can't be bothered with him, Arthur, John or Ada.

He doesn't voice it out loud, Aunt Polly told him not to start anything and he won't because he promised her that he wouldn't.

He just spends as little time at home as possible.

She's pretty the blonde, he doesn't bother learning her name because she's nothing to him, just someone either stupid or naive enough to fall for his dad's bullshit.

He pities her because he knows his dad will ruin her life because that's what he does to people.

He drove his mother into an early grave, if he hadn't been sleeping with that woman's daughter, Aunt Polly wouldn't have Michael and Anna taken from her.

Aunt Polly doesn't know that piece of the story and Tommy never intends to tell her because losing them nearly destroyed her and he doesn't want her to know that ultimately it was her brother's fault.

Aunt Polly is there when the baby is born and so is Ada. A boy, the blonde names him Finn.

Two weeks later, after Finn is born his dad and the blonde are gone. They just left Finn like he was nothing and he expects it from his dad but not Finn's mum.

Aunt Polly says it's for the best and Tommy doesn't know whether he agrees or not, but nods his head in agreement because for the first time in a long time she's happy.

Having Finn there makes her happy so he doesn't complain, that's its another mouth to feed or another person to protect.

Tommy just silently slips into the role of being a father figure to Finn because Arthur's to unpredictable and quick tempered, and it's not fair to force the role onto John. 


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

John liked Martha but he wasn't sure if he wanted to marry her or not. Not that he had much of a choice not now she was pregnant. He could run away, but if he did that no one in his family would talk to him again.

Any man that walked out on his child was worthless at least that's what his Aunt Polly had always told him.  
It wasn't just losing his family that stopped him leaving it was also the fact that it would be Martha who got called a "Whore," even though she wasn't.

It would be his unborn child that would be called a "Bastard,".

But there would be no word for him the man that got Martha pregnant and decided to leave and not come back.

Actually, there was a word, but no one ever used it for the man who wasn't decent enough to stay, it was "Coward,".

And John Shelby was many things, but a coward wasn't one of them. 


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Tommy loved Grace, really loved her and her betrayal hurt. He was used to being the one that broke hearts in a twisted way it was refreshing to have the roles reversed.

In some ways it was funny that he wasn't aware that he still had a heart until she broke it.

His beautiful Grace, who had something dangerous and deadly burning in her eyes tore out his heart and sang a sad song while doing do it.  
Maybe one day when his heart mended and started to beat again, he could forgive her. 


End file.
